


Radio Silence

by knitmeapony



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-12
Updated: 2006-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitmeapony/pseuds/knitmeapony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What: Twenty-seven loosely connected drabbles with River at the fore. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radio Silence

Her breath came out in puffs, strange and curling in the air.

"It's cold."

But it wasn't. It wasn't cold. Something else was curling out of her lungs, something no one else could see, smoke in her eyes.

Book sat unmoving, hovering above his faith and after a moment glanced up, expression curious.

No, yesterday, when she told him it was cold, told them not to go. No, long before. Today, he didn't look up at all.

"Radio silence." It echoed, _silence_ , but only until the proximity alarm wailed.

She saluted and padded forward, barefoot. There was piloting to do.

**-Alpha-**

Book had listened. Book always listened when she talked, no matter how little he understood. He did the same for everyone, his mind shifting to listen to them right.

His brain was a bird for Inara, soaring and dipping through conversation, proud. For Jayne it was more a sound, a low hum like her mother singing to herself in the parlor.

For her, it was a shield. He knew the stories, you see. Jayne's shield was insulting, cold and hammered steel; Book's was made of caution, a delicate mesh that draped, clung, shimmered like a dragonfly.

She loved his mind.

**-Bravo-**

No one mind could get them out of this one; this was no mere suggestion, no small consequence. Mal made her see it first: he told them they were going somewhere so small it didn't have a name.

“Terraformers got needs. Food, water, bits to keep a man's mind from breaking.” They'd stowed alcohol and harder stuff, things that made Simon's lips press together so thin she thought they'd implode.

He told them on a Sunday; by Tuesday she couldn't sleep.

Book listened. He heard. But he couldn't see what was coming, only what was past.

She cried for days.

**-Charlie-**

Kaylee tried to get her to cheer up a bit before they landed. It was a fair try, and one that had worked in the past; they played a bit of ball, they curled up close and talked for hours. _Peas in a pod,_ people thought – everyone knew Kaylee was a little offish too. _Yin and yang,_ Book thought – he knew how different they were.

They read stories, she and Kaylee, told tales – Kaylee's full of people and places she loved, face lighting up, radiating through the fog.

But there was fog, and eventually even her light didn't beam through.

**-Delta-**

When Jayne was asleep, River crept down to his doorway and slept just there. It was safe, her quiet place, with little mind to crawl through and pure, open motives littered around like wildflowers.

He didn't like it much; he complained and Mal and Simon told her not to do it anymore, and she didn't care. This was where she could think properly.

One night he stopped complaining and left his door open; she was no rabbit and she said. She liked fruit, peaches and apples, not carrots. He looked disappointed. It was the only time he ever understood.

Typical.

**-Echo-**

Book finally took her by the hand one night, and told her he'd show her a quieter place. Inara's shuttle smelled of jasmine and vetiver, pillow full of dreams, all purple and green. She hugged her and kissed her on the forehead and that's where she slept, from then 'til the end.

She'd stopped taking clients weeks ago. It wasn't a sometimes thing, she told River, and River agreed. There aren't any jobs at the end of the universe.

She closed her eyes and rested on silk and satin, listened to the fighting and the loving and the quiet laughter.

**-Foxtrot-**

They called the place Helena, and it was the last in a list of terrible women. Persephone. Miranda. Jayne.

When they landed, the first thing she noticed was the sky. “Green,” she said, “like a bottle all opened up to the sun.” Mal gave her that damned-if-I-don't-understand-you look, and she smiled. “We're on our way to the bottom.”

Simon was tired, so Book took her by the arm, took her down to the shore, to the ocean. “High tide,” she told him, but he didn't understand that it was the world receding, not the water.

**-Golf-**

They brought smoke back with them when the ship lifted. It was all over their clothes, over every inch of deck and stair, through the hoops and slats and screens. River closed her eyes and breathed it in; she didn't want to be left behind.

She prowled the ship at night, insomniac, listening for tell-tale breathing. She heard it from Zoe, but she knew that; it'd been in Zoe's throat for weeks now.

She heard it from Kaylee first, and no, god, no. She woke her trying to draw the smoke out of her lungs; none of them understood.

**-Hotel-**

They were cross at her, and she tried to explain, but this time they wouldn't even listen. Jayne blamed it on the peaches, and they all thought he'd gone crazy, which was funny just at first, but then it started to hurt.

It hurt her right between the lungs and she pulled in for a bit, going to sleep here and there. She woke up once in the infirmary, and Simon smoothed her hair, told her it wasn't long now. They were going to a hospital, all rogues on the rim.

“Irony,” she laughed. Simon put her back to sleep.

**-India-**

Broken, they let her up so she could wander, thinking curling up green and milky to leave brilliant traces and marks like equations in a foreign language if she could just grasp them but smoke you can't touch it touches you and ghosts her skin in ways that left her numb, scrambling for answers but then too late.

She blinked tears over and over when they buried Kaylee; it wasn't as if she had died, it was as if she had killed her.

They forgave her when she went mad, screaming; saved them the trouble of going on their own.

**-Juliet-**

Kaylee taught her about engines, little ways to cobble things right and hear the ship talkin'. River had hearing better than most, smells and tastes even were special to her, she had patterns and sights locked up in her head most wouldn't dream. She couldn't do what Kaylee did, even then, even smarter, faster, stronger, hearing, seeing and she couldn't do it twice, replace them over and over.

All you had to do was keep flying, but where next? On the drift was all that's safe.

River locked herself away, puzzling over and over, wearing out solutions like blue jeans.

**-Kilo-**

When she came back to herself she was lucid. She had the answer and she almost lost it again, lying in a ward full of anguish. Zoe was there. Wash was gone.

She was on overload, crying and shuddering 'til Book saw what happened and carried her away.

She explained to him, unsure of her words; there were homonyms and synonyms and metaphors and she tried 'til he just held her as she cried.

She said _I tried to warn you_ and he said _I see that now._ Maybe he was being kind, but at least its stopped the ache.

**-Lima-**

Wash got no funeral because Zoe wouldn't hear of it.

They listened this time, and Book translated when he had to, and why hadn't he before? Didn't like peeling back that mesh of caution, opening them both up to understanding. Terraforming. Remember the train job? The malady? Like that. You never know what you'll churn up.

Don't know what's living there you never see.

It was their fault, they carried it, but you could blame the Alliance if you wanted, and they did.

Blame the Alliance for all this, and she could slide back into her skin while they argued.

**-Mike-**

_There has to be a cure,_ except there wasn't and she didn't have the heart to say. And then Inara took to her shuttle, and there _has_ to be a cure, except there wasn't. Not for her or for Mal, who'd lost too many.

Even at the end wouldn't let himself go to her. No sense making it worse. No sense to any of this, no rhyme or reason, only regret.

They went to a planet to bury her, somewhere the ground was soft and there were insects, something with lacy wings that'd bite and draw blood, if provoked.

Perfect.

**-November-**

It made her think: time was passing, and they were covering it up like there was nothing. Didn't they learn? You can't stop the signal. Can't keep the little guy down. Can't keep the rumors from flying, especially when they're true.

They got it out, sure enough, same way as always – blood and grit and determination. Made sacrifices enough but Simon saved them when he had to, even when Mal asked him why.

They all tested positive. River could have told them that. Terraforming put dust in the air, and more. Now they're all breathing smoke, fogging up the atmo.

**-Oscar-**

Jayne didn't die; Jayne left. You don't burden down a crew when there's burdens as it is. Simple as that.

It was happening all over, happening again; they were just lying down, not eating, not drinking, almost sleeping themselves to sleep, all over each planet.

Jayne walked away 'cause it was time to leave. Just Mal and Zoe again, like the old days. She could hear him thinking it as she slipped them free of the gravity. She didn't mind.

They went all the way to nowhere, where it was the same. Don't touch this town, don't touch at all.

**-Papa-**

Zoe had a baby, but it died before she did, except not really. She never named him, just burned him up and set the ashes out free. River called him Leif, which she thought Wash would have enjoyed, much more than he would have being there.

Zoe hadn't been the same since the Reavers, and when they found Jayne had left his things behind along with his memory she took to going down there to think, to hold cold metal in her fingers, see how it fit.

She had the courage to pull the trigger, but not enough to stop.

**-Quebec-**

News was wildfire, and so were they; they had a good doctor, and enough kindness to go around. She could see the infection, work out where it started, see who they could save and ship them to the core.

Wasn't 'til they'd already sent children that they heard how ships were being turned away. One Alliance man gets twitchy and they're shot out of the sky without so much of a by your leave. Ships on the rim, they don't get trusted.

People, neither.

They'd had to shoot a fair few themselves, but that they could justify. More or less.

**-Romeo-**

Book didn't justify; Book forgave. She was greatful for that, since she did an awful lot of the shooting. He'd soothe her hair (he clipped his own) and she'd laugh at jokes that had been told long ago, ones that left echoes of giggles running through the kitchen the way Kaylee once painted the flowers.

Book held her hand and told her about faith, and she talked back, asking if he sees, if she saw. She couldn't tell, anymore, if there was a thing to believe in.

He said there was. He believed in her.

_You'll find a way, River._

**-Sierra-**

There was a river here, (not just her), a beautiful place for the world to end, all purple mountains majesty which meant something once, some lyric or poem, a relic of Earth-that-was. She could hum notes that maybe it went to, but the words were different these days.

_I sing a song of mountains gone, of ground feet tread no more; I sing a song remem'bring those who tread upon her shore..._

It's a ghost. The words were echoed down through ages. She let it rattle around in her head while she tried to find a way.

**-Tango-**

Watching Simon treat a disease was like watching ballet or a really good fight. They barely touched one another, gliding and jabbing and weaving. He lasted seventeen days in the thick of it before he was infected. He worked, sick and sweating, 'til he just lay down to rest.

It was only an accident she heard his last breath; it was only by Book that they didn't leave her there.

He had as much a funeral as any, and for that she was grateful. It gave her time to wash his hands, his face. Wouldn't do to bury him dirty.

**-Uniform-**

Mal died on a Friday, like Jesus. His whole life had been Gesthemane, only he never begged. No _Lord, let this cup pass from my lips._ No _oh god, why have you forsaken me?_

It was more the story of Job; _I alone am left to tell thee._ Might be his own sermon, something like _fuck you, God, yi da tuo dabian._ He put a key in her hand she never did find the lock for. They couldn't bury him, just dropped him out the door to float and some day slip back in, burn and stay in the sky.

**-Victor-**

There was nothing frightening left. Just the two of them, alone at the end of all things. They didn't have to use words, just circle 'round one another like planets, stars, whatever else there was in the endless night.

She loved him waking, the comforting presence that let her know they'd do what they can, move on, take her out further. Endless night kept getting more endless.

She loved him more sleeping, the dreams that leaked beyond his hair, dreams of sunshine and someone laughing. She loved the stutterstop as he woke, that world fading like a photograph, softly, softly.

**-Whiskey-**

****It wasn't the cold, and she didn't know why she was last. All that should have scared her, but it didn't. It was quiet at last, the kind of quiet that wrapped you up in it and made a girl like her smile and revel for just a bare few moments.

It made her sad, too. Book had finally stopped searching for faith in dead pages; whatever faith he had now was wrapped up in the universe. She missed his hand on her shoulder.

She put him to bed with the rest, lying in a haphazard pattern in her mind.

**-X-ray-**

She listened to the news, over and over, just for voices to break through the icy air. Persephone was gone. That moon where there were cows. Places to dance, and where there was a fair, once, and Jayne had won a turtle. He kept it so careful, even through the bombs, and she made him a necklace out of ribbon to cover the scar. (Though she couldn't remember which _he_ she gave the ribbon to).

Ariel was safe. There were quarantines in place, safeguards and all, but they couldn't fool her. Nowhere was safe. Not from anything. Not from her.  
 **  
-Yankee-**

They were trying to quarantine, but they couldn't quarantine this; she made the connections, bought the codes, slid under their radar. Even now, money could get you anywhere.

Here she was, hovering in orbit, engine barely flickering with life. They'd be proud to know what she was doing, all of them. Her whole life came to this point; each moment taught her something more to finish this, make it simple, make it safe.

River knew, now, why she was the one left behind. It could have been god or anyone who whispered in her ear: _it has to be finished._

**-Zulu-**

This is what she heard: _don't let them escape._

She serenely set course, down and down and down. When it ended, the ship would be open, and smoke – fog – disease would pour into the last safe place in the universe.

It was the last for humans, that is; rest of the universe would be just fine after all this. The bacteria would in particular enjoy themselves.

She lay with Book on the floor as they sank through the atmo, confessing her sins 'til there was no more fuel.

She held his hand, and they hit with a clap of thunder.


End file.
